Relationship of Anxiety and Burnout with Extrasystoles in Critical Care Nurses in Turkey

Objective: To determine the relationship between levels of anxiety and burnout and prevalence of atrial extrasystoles (AESs) and ventricular extrasystoles (VESs) among critical care nurses.

Methods: The sample of study included 51 nurses who worked in the intensive care units of a university hospital located in western Turkey. Beck’s Anxiety Inventory and the Maslach Burnout Inventory were used in the study.

Results: The mean emotional exhaustion score of the nurses was 14.68±6.10, the mean personal accomplishment score was 19.19±7.08, the mean depersonalization score was 5.31±3.84 and the mean anxiety score was 12.37±11.12. The rates of VESs and AESs detected in the critical care nurses were 21.6% and 35.3%, respectively. No relationship was found between levels of anxiety and burnout and the prevalence of AESs and VESs among the critical care nurses. A positive correlation was found between personal accomplishment scores and numbers of VESs (r= 0.693, p=0.001) and AESs (r= 0.700, p= 0.001).

Conclusion: In the present study, there were low mean scores of burnout and anxiety among nurses working in intensive care units. No relationship was found between levels of anxiety and burnout and the prevalence of AESs and VESs among nurses who work in intensive care units. It was found that the people feeling more personal accomplishment have more VES or AES. The prevalence of AESs and VESs among the critical care nurses suffering from burnout and anxiety may be studied in the future studies.